Bohemian Musings

So today I visited Dutchtown High School as a speaker for career day. Andy’s mother invited me to come and speak with her about graphic design, and the web design work I’ve done with FanBolt as well as my work with Warner Brothers. I got up at 6:40, and ended up down there about a hour early (killed some time napping in my car)… I suspected I would encounter traffic, however it was not an issue.

I spoke to 6 groups throughout the day, and then accompanied Andy’s mother to her art class to talk to her students about my work as well. Everyone was super nice, and it ended up being a pretty cool experience. It was rather amusing when I first got there and walked into the office… I was informed I was late and I told them that the thing said I wasn’t supposed to be there till 9 and it was 8:30. They then said oh you’re not a student? I smiled, biting my tongue, and told them I was there to speak. :)

I spoke about my educational background, my current site, the movie/tv promotions I work with, the movie press tour I went on last fall, how I got started in the industry, dealing with copyrights, my daily routines, the importance of networking and marketing yourself, budgeting, salaries, and then what a pain self-employment taxes are.

I think my favorite question asked was “Does your myspace look cool?” I found this pretty amusing. I replied with “I like to think so.” And then I had several guys inform me they were going to add me as a friend when they got home. After that group left, Andy’s mother joked that they were one step away from asking me out. They kept waving to me and saying hey to me for the rest of the day in the hall. heh :)

Overall, I think it went over really well. Several of them said I was the coolest speaker that they had heard. I then gave them pens and bumper stickers. Because that’s what you do when people think you’re cool. :) They wanted shirts too, so I promised to send some back to them through Andy’s mom. I was pretty stoked they were so excited about it.